


Seesaw

by firearms57



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Demon Sebastian Michaelis, No Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-07
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2020-04-12 01:40:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,873
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19122004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firearms57/pseuds/firearms57
Summary: Introspection amidst death. Set in the Luxury Liner Arc.--He took a moment to curse himself letting his guard down like that, but he was sure he’d heard —Yes.There it was again.From behind the boat’s rear seat, a sound. A whimper. His master was crying.--





	Seesaw

**Author's Note:**

> I've always been fascinated by Sebastian and couldn't leave off without writing him at least one fic. I started this a while ago and for no reason decided to continue at 11 PM instead of sleeping.

He could barely think for the feeling. It sat in his belly, a foreign seed, turning slender limbs graceless and pale skin ashen. But thought didn’t matter, the way he was moving. Bones cracked, skin popped like a balloon. He burst from his prison of human flesh in a hazy cloud of hate and rage, form abandoned as he became a shapeless mass of undulating shadow. Twin spots of red marked the place where his eyes had been. In this existence, he was not the cultured killer who’d slain angels and decimated cities. That one was the face he used when forming a contract, a faceted mask whose only purpose was to instill fear in the opposition (in the same way a caterpillar wears red to warn of its poison). This form spoke the truth of his nature: Chaos. Hunger. 

He broke time to reach his meal (truly, its ever-ticking clock cracked down the middle) — this the power of a devil’s resolve — to reach his master, his meal, his plaything, the only interesting thing in a thousand years of existence. With taloned fingers of night, he reached.

A single beat of his faux heart.

Another. 

Then—

_ Pain _ .

When the blade pierced the skin on his back, he was already turning, some divine instinct screaming danger, though he couldn’t understand it. What danger? when his master was right there, fingers outstretched oh-so desperately, blue eyes wide and mouth agape in want, in  _ need _ , of his demon. It sent a delighted trickle up his spine, fangs splitting through his gums and into the soft flesh of his tongue. With it, the need to  _ have _ ,  _ claim _ ,  _ rend _ — 

He gasped, back arching when the blade came out through his stomach. Steel glanced off bone, narrowly missing his heart, and when had his body become solid again? Pain arced through him like lightning, and for a moment he worried he’d die. The thought confused him for its incongruity. He’d been held to a cross, twisted on a spit, drowned, choked, impaled, bludgeoned, hanged, shot, stoned, dismembered, and all other manners of torture. Never once had he feared death. Death was a topic of interest and wonder in all the creative ways it could be accessed, and perhaps the only true art that a demon took part in. 

The confusion left him as his master’s fingers slipped from his own. 

Then he was rage. At the dirty reaper who thought to pluck his meal from under his nose. Who plunged a scythe through his back as an act of curiosity. Who treated him as if he were  _ lesser. _

Did he not know who he was? Did he not  _ know  _ who he  _ was _ ? 

The scream that left him was not of the mortal plane. High and keening and bestial, the reapers clapped hands to ears and writhed in agony. With a mighty roar, the demon flung himself from the blade, ripping tissue as he went. He caught Ciel around the waste and twisted in the air, shielding the boy’s fragile human body with his own. When he hit the ground, black swept up the edges of his vision.

Unlike men, devils do not fear death nor the dark. In it, they find solace, a piece of Hades in the foreign wasteland that is Earth. The demon who’d been named Sebastian felt the calling of home in the blackness dimming his vision. 

_ Dimly, he could hear…“Sebastian?” _

Memories of flight through broken chasms, the thrill of battle on windswept plains, blood in his mouth and flesh in his hands. He lingered. He’d been here for too long. Three years was  _ too long _ . Perhaps if he remained here in the dark, he might find himself someplace else. Someplace familiar…

“Sebastian!” 

His eyes snapped open. When he tried to sit upright, pain ripped through him like wildfire, and his chest convulsed in a wet cough. He tasted blood, and he hurt like — well, he hurt like  _ hell _ , but —

Was that  _ fear  _ in his master’s voice…?  

“Sebastian, get up!”

Yes, he could sense it now. A sweet scent to his breath, a tremble to his voice that he tried desperately to hide. It made him quiver with hunger.

Unfortunately, the thieving reaper in the corner still needed tending to.

Weakly, he ran his tongue over his teeth. He could savor the flavor at least, before he killed the thing. 

When the ship canted, he was unprepared.

 

*

 

When he battled the soulless Dolls on a boat no longer than a casket, the pain was momentarily lost to his lust. He loved killing. Pulling limbs from bodies, tearing joint, ligament, and muscle until one body was indistinguishable from the next. He could never understand a human until their innards were held in the palms of his hands. 

Watching the lot of them jostle and jump atop each other in their effort to get at his master, he had a hard time seeing them as the monstrosities the humans seemed to think they were. They were certainly creative. He could give the Undertaker that. But not  _ awful _ . Not that he was particularly fond of them either. These...things, whatever they were, certainly didn’t hold the charm of the living. Man, at least, held thought enough in his mind to be mildly amusing. These things held neither thought nor wit, which made them utterly uninteresting as far as Sebastian was concerned. 

A sound from behind made him stumble and allowed an opening for the Doll in front of him. He hissed in annoyance more than pain as teeth grazed his arm. Irritably, he regained the ground he’d lost. He took a moment to curse himself letting his guard down like that, but he was sure he’d heard —

_ Yes.  _

There it was again.

From behind the boat’s rear seat, a sound. A whimper. His master was crying.

The thought sent a confusing contradiction of emotions through him. There was the initial hunger of course, the surge of desire that sprinted from mouth to loins, the need to possess and claim, and a moment later that tired amusement he felt whenever a master of his lost themselves to greed, forgetting the devil's power they commanded was theirs only by condition, and began to see in their spirit immortality — these so like his master, who thought himself above the mandates of both his human brethren and the divine.

The devil — Sebastian, that is — thought it the universe's best joke. Humans, so good at reading flaws in another, remained eternally blind to their own. The devil himself was not so blind — that is to say, he couldn't have been, divine being that he was. All God's creations save man knew what they were to the world and their place in it. 

That weeping again. His master's pained tears sent a rent through the devil's graceful footwork, also a smile to his lips. This master, too, knew not his place, but one day soon he would.

_ For that place is _ _  midst my stomach. _

But, first, he had a duty. His master couldn't defend himself, could he? He wouldn't have made such delightful prey if he could.

The devil thrust his palm through the woman-corpse that had tried to kill him. Idly, as he twisted her head from its thrashing body, he wondered at his own desire. How odd it was to protect the very thing he wanted to consume. Or perhaps it wasn't the master he was protecting, but his right to kill. His master was a silly thing, but sometimes the devil saw in him a greed to rival his own. Some would call his master ruthless, or evil, for how little he cared to destroy his opposition, but others, like the devil who served him, might admire his persistence. He would stop at nothing to satisfy his need for power, no matter if he trampled the whole of the world to get there.

The Dolls were no different, though the ease with which the devil tore through their flesh bespoke of greater difference. Rotting, dead. Mindless bags of meat. It disturbed him on a level he could not fully explain. See, humans were charming in their contradictions. The struggle between base desire and divinity was what separated them from beings like himself — also what made them so fun to manipulate. Remove that, and they became flat slabs of meat. Uniform, tasteless. A meal without a show, he thought, was no meal worth eating. 

Sebastian neatly dodged the gnashing teeth at his throat, then promptly bashed its face in. Almost immediately after the Doll fell to the deck, another two filled the gap. He crushed the skull of the first with a backhanded blow. The second, he tore in half. 

That half of the boat clear, he spun around to deal with the other. The pain in his chest was becoming a nuisance, but he ignored it. He wouldn't allow these rats to touch his master. No matter what, they would not spoil his meal.

By dawn, the devil was exhausted. He fell to the deck of the boat, oar clattering from his hands. On a normal day, eight hours of killing was a pleasurable warm-up, but with all his leaping and dodging the gash in his chest had not had a chance to heal and was making breathing difficult.

The demon's lips curled into a snarl. That damned reaper. He would rip his head from his shoulders when next he saw him.

But for now…

He coughed, the move sending a rippling pain through his chest. He pulled his hand away and stared. The white of his glove was speckled with red, like doves' feathers dipped in blood. 

"Sebastian?"

Dropping his hand to his lap, Sebastian turned to look at his master, who despite having been the one to issue the summons, was not looking back. 

Amused, he said, "Yes, My Lord?" His voice came as a croak.

"Are you… Are you well?"

Despite himself, he smirked. "Why, Master, are you concerned for your demon?"

At this, the boy flushed. "No, of course not! I merely wanted to be sure you were fit to continue in service for the day. If another of those... _ things _ comes after me, I can't have you falling on your face."

"Of course not, Master." Sebastian, slowly, painfully, got to his feet and placed hand to heart. "I shan't slip like a princess at her first ball, this I swear."

"Damned twit," the boy muttered, turning away further. "We should return to the others. They're bound to be worried, we've been gone so long."

"At once."

The devil set to the painful task of rowing the boat, stroke by aching stroke, the oar shoving a murky trail through the blood and debris. The boy's concern seemed alleviated, for now at least, by the devil's usual wit. It was by no kindness that the devil had spoken such, for truly there was none in his heart, but rather out of amusement. The child thought himself so grand at times, masquerading about as a man twice his age, but times like these… Just a pinch of stress, a smidgen of fear, and the mask fell apart to reveal the child beneath. The devil smiled.

A most delectable meal.


End file.
